Richmond Royals knock off first place Westport Rideaus
Manotick Messenger Staff
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]The Richmond Royals are swirling near the bottom of the Central Canada Junior Hockey League 2 standings, but they showed they can play with any team in the league.
On Saturday night in Richmond, the Royals faced the first place Westport Rideaus at the Richmond Memorial Centre. Despite being outshot 45-27, the Royals rode the hot goaltending of Darien Johnson and took advantage of key miscues and turnovers to pick up a 6-2 win.
Johnson took on a barrage of rubber in the first period, as Westport fired 19 shots at Johnson. He stopped all of them, and the Royals were able to go into the first intermission with a 1-0 lead as Owen Grundy scored his first of the year from Ethan Greene and Patrick Yates with less than three minutes to play in the period.
In the second period, Yates scored his sixth goal of the year from Greene and Adam Goodfellow at the 1:18 mark.
Midway through the second, a couple of local minor hockey graduates combined to put Westport on the board. Former Upper Canada Cyclone Griffin Patterson converted a feed from former Ottawa Valley Silver Seven standout Blake Kettyle and Charles Rongo to make the score 2-1.
Richmond regained control of the game as TK Mwamba scored his first of the year from Connor Gilchrist and Declan Flanagan, and Yates added his second of the game from Adam Goodfellow with 1:47 remaining in the period.
Sean James scored for Westport in the third from Kettyle and Anthony Ieradi on the power play, but that was all the offence the Rideaus would get on Johnson. Ryan Mann scored his sixth of the year from Yates and Dupuis to give Richmond a 5-2 lead, while Ethan Vaset added a shorthanded empty net goal with 1:35 left to play.
Johnson was the first star of the game, stopping 43 of 45 shots faced. Yates was the second star while Kettyle was the game’s third star.
The win snapped a two-game skid for the Royals, as they had dropped a pair of games the previous week.
On Sunday, Oct. 13, the Ottawa Junior Canadians beat the Royals 8-1. The Rouyals scored three goals in both the first and second periods, and added two in the third before Ryan Mann scored his fifth of the year from Yates to break the shutout.
On Thanksgiving Day, the Royals hosted the Carleton Place Canadians and lost 4-1. The Canadians outshot the Royals 55-20 in the contest.
Connor Gilchrist scored the lone Royals goal from Declan Flanagan. Bill Gourgon, Ethan Woolsey, Jayden Boyer and Oliver Reid were the goals scorers for Carleton Place.
This weekend, the Royals travel to Char-Lan to take on the Rebels Saturday night. Sunday afternoon, they are at home to face Casselman for a 1:30 p.m. face-off.
